Hellbent

by Tina Glasneck

  Before he could remove his gun, I felt my body shifting and moving.

  There are no shortcuts to greatness, Sif, said the shrill voice in my head. Her face wasn’t seen.

  “It was a mistake.”

  Is this when you become a reluctant hero? You are like us all, greedy and think only of yourself. You are like all of us here. I can help you, but you must let us.

  I quickly snatched up hairpins, and at the end two men were on the floor, with the pins in their throats and the girls were gaping at me. Outside of my body, I watched as I did moves I didn’t know I could do. Sure, I could climb buildings and do gymnastics, but hand-to-hand combat wasn’t a part of my repertoire.

  The third man raced away pulling Verdandi behind him and whatever I had become let him.

  I fell to my knees.

  “That was the weirdest thing ever.” I rubbed my goose-bump-riddled arms. I felt uncomfortable in my skin. “What happened?” I asked.

  They stared at me and said nothing.

  Whatever was in that stone now possessed me, protected me, and used me.

  “Excuse me, ladies,” someone with a deep voice said.

  We stopped and turned at the sound. It belonged to the teaching assistant hottie from Professor Gaines’ class.

  “I don’t wish to bother you, but it seems you all might need a hand.”

  Chi got her voice back first. “What gave it away? The dead men on the floor, her bloodied hands, or did you just hear someone calling out a Norse god’s name and decided to show up for a how-are-you-doing sort of moment? Damn it, man, with all of this strangeness going on, you are really suspect right now!”

  Maybe it was his costume. “Dressed as Thor, too, huh?” She placed her hands on her hips as if she were readying for more of a fight.

  I took in his appearance: a golden helmet rested on his head, while over his broad shoulders a long cloak was draped—and it was fluttering behind him despite there being no wind. Sophisticated gold armor hugged him. His large hands were hidden in gloved bands, and around his waist rested a belt, from which hung a mighty hammer. This was no comic book Thor, but one that shared the true Norse god’s handsomeness.

  “Thor?” I chuckled. “You guys went all out.” I turned and looked at them, and they looked at me.

  “Nope, this is all on you,” Chi said. “Madam Petulia did say that the gods heard you. Can you tell me what we should do with the bodies now?”

  “Don’t ask me. You just served me a penis cake, and I am all out of ideas.”

  Madam Petulia muttered, “Sorry about that. I tried to create a hammer—it just didn’t come out so well.”

  I laughed at that, too. Who knew a birthday would end up with a penis cake, a hottie dressed as Thor, and, of course, two dead men who I’d killed?

  “What do we tell the police now?” Chi asked.

  “Why not just offer them a piece of cake?” Ola laughed. “It worked for Marie Antoinette.”

  Before another chuckle could leave my lips and I could bat my eyelashes at the handsome man before me, a bright light boomed around us.

  Madam Petulia nodded. “I fear that this might not be the end.” She ducked and raced away.

  He grabbed my hand.

  “Come, Sif, we don’t have as much time as I thought,” Mr. Hottie said.

  “Huh?” I asked. “I don’t think I need you to save me. I can save me.”

  “Right now, my dear, you don’t have a bloody choice.” The urgency in his voice, the plea in his gaze, left little time for me to react. I grabbed Chi’s hand, who took Emili’s hand, and Emili took Ola’s and Ola took Kristen’s. A human chain. As he pulled me after him, what I can only guess was a nuclear wind blew toward us. He wrapped himself around us, protecting us from the chunks of concrete and insulation that came crashing down on us. Thousands of tons of rubble.

  In that small cave, with me held tightly to him, he raised Mjölnir, his hammer, and struck. It sparked and spat until a hole appeared and we finally gasped the night air.

  Seeing him, I knew it to be true. It was all coming back to me. Everything that Verdandi had spoken of, had shown me, and all that Freyja had whispered.

  “Until we meet on the other side.” He pushed us through.

  Part 2: Welcome to the Apocalypse

  A window to the heavens shall open and the gods shall be pulled asunder; brother against brother, wife against husband, wisdom begetting foolishness.

  And the children of Ask and Embla shall bathe in blood of the immortals as the world is set in flames by the gods’ pride.

  Kiss of Ymir, Stanza 9

  Chapter 15

  Lady Hel, Asgard

  For this trip to Asgard, she did not go crawling. She went without invitation.

  Stepping back there, it was like stepping through time. She entered not by crossing the Bifrost Bridge but through the land of the giants, her people. She stood at the edge of what remained of her childhood home, a hovel in comparison to the gold and grace of Asgard. She recalled the laughter, the light in the darkness, the love.

  To each other, they weren’t monsters or beasts, but family. Funny how others got to define another’s reality. Every day her father had told her she was beautiful; every day he at least had pretended they were what the heart regarded them to be: family.

  She closed her eyes. She could still smell her mother’s sweet perfume, as if she’d been bathing at the lake, and the taste of the fresh mutton; hear her soothing voice asking that the children play nicely together, share, or take care of one another.

  Yet, all of that had ended with Odin’s arrival. He had demanded the children, and they’d been ushered to the golden city to be prodded and poked, degraded and labeled.

  How much of the prophecy that hung over their heads was indeed self-inflicted? How long could a dog be kicked before he started to bite?

  “What are you doing here, Lady Hel?” asked Annar, the giant of night and her uncle. “We have not seen you on this side of the walls in a long time.”

  “I know, dear Uncle, but I wished to visit my mother’s grave since I was in the area.”

  “I see that you came to the realm but not by the bridge?”

  “There are other ways between the realms, and this time love brought me home.”

  He shook his head. “They have made you soft if you are speaking of such.”

  “Only with you, for I seek news of Fenrir, or Jörmungandr.”

  “Outside of the prophecies that have overshadowed their existence?”

  “Evil will always exist, but evil is not absolute,” she answered.

  He nodded his head. “Come, I will show you what your mother left behind for you.”

  They walked through the forest of the giants, located across the river from Asgard proper. Within its depths lived other beings besides the giants and not all were friendly, but she feared nothing. She was the Goddess of Death, and nothing would change that—no matter where she stood, she still ruled. “And how did she die?”

  “In battle, fighting for her children.”

  “And my father, what of him?”

  “Word has spread that he has been exiled in time as well, just as Thor was.”

  “Thor is not in Asgard?”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “And why have you not attacked?”

  “The war has gone on for ages, this enmity, and for what good? They continue to build their walls, loot and steal our resources, and pin us under their thumbs. Somehow they have forgotten that we are all one.”

  Hel nodded. The politics of Asgard were divisive. How many giants had intermarried to ascend to a throne in the pantheon? Even Thor himself was half giant.

  She followed her uncle into his simple home and took a seat on a stool. The wood creaked.

  Such poverty that she’d somehow forgotten, not only the lack of sustenance but of light, as if the gods had determined on whom the light would shine. Here was a dimness, not to mention a coldness that required
firestones to be rid of it.

  Annar passed her a small wooden chest.

  “I’ll give you a moment.” He stood and walked toward the fire to stir it, and she opened the chest.

  Inside was only a small piece of parchment.

  Head to the highest mountain overlooking Asgard and whisper my name, and I shall come.

  “What does this mean?”

  Annar leaned forward.

  “She has secret knowledge to share with you, as passed drown from Ymir. Knowledge and wisdom that you must attain, for I can see your intentions. You wish to challenge the All-Father, but you are not strong enough to do so. Just as the heart that still beats in the secret vaults of Asgard can change a woman to a dragon, surely it can bestow upon you the strength you need to be victorious.”

  Hel shook her head. “I am not here to cause war, for war is what he would want. No, I am here in peace to request what I need. I don’t need an evil tactic to get Odin to listen.”

  “He will never listen to you because to him you are a monster, an other.”

  Hel closed the chest and gave it back to her uncle. “Thank you for your advice, but I must do it my way.”

  “And when you fail?”

  “I shall not fail, for I am still a goddess.”

  Chapter 16

  Lady Hel

  “I tried to stop her, All-Father, but she would not take no for an answer,” Kara the Valkyrie shouted as Lady Hel entered the throne room.

  Her white cloak blew behind Hel, as was custom in Asgard, and a crown brilliant with black jewels rested on her head.

  “I have come to seek an audience,” Lady Hel said and curtsied.

  “And how is it that you are here without invitation?” Odin enquired, coldly polite.

  “I am a goddess, still given permission to travel between the realms,” she said.

  “So I see, and what is it that you wish to ask?”

  The throne room doors opened and in walked Freyja. “I heard that an audience was to be sought.”

  “With the All-Father,” Lady Hel said.

  Freyja quirked her eyebrow. “Should I then leave? Would that suit your ill intentions?”

  “I have no ill intentions, but I do have an honorable request, for it appears that one who is under your protection has stolen what is mine.”

  Odin looked to Freyja, and Freyja remained silent. “And how do you know this?”

  “Midgard has a technology called security cameras, but should that not suffice she left a magical trail.”

  “I would have asked if you’d employed Fenrir to sniff her out, but since you are here that must be a no.” Odin began. “And what is this thing?” He cleared his throat.

  Hel remained quiet. Of course, the All-Father wouldn’t reveal an iota of information regarding Fenrir’s whereabouts. He’d never admit failure or entrapment.

  “It is the Stone of Embarni,” Freyja whispered.

  “And who is it that protects the stone?” Odin asked. “Better yet, who is the one that protects the one fused with the stone?”

  “Thor,” Freyja reluctantly said.

  Odin grew silent and stared straight at Lady Hel. “What is it you wish to do with the stone?”

  “That is of little concern. It is lawfully mine and attained without trickery but with honor.” She refused to mention Sleipnir, and that it was by his own steed’s doing that she’d received his gift. Family above all.

  Odin gripped his spear and banged the shaft against the floor. “Your request is denied,” he bellowed.

  Lady Hel gaped at him, her jaw slack. She was prepared for almost everything but not his saying no.

  “What do you mean, ‘no?’”

  “The woman is protected, so we will not intervene. What you have unleashed has placed certain things in motion, but I would suggest that you not allow your heart to turn to evil. Let Ymir remain a pure lesson as to what we gods allow and disallow.”

  “Are you saying that if I turn to evil, you will murder me, too, and disassemble my body to create a new world?”

  “We’ve already made a realm out of you. If you behave, you just might be able to make it back there without breaking one of your rotting nails.”

  He raised his hand and armed guards came and gripped her arms. She watched their faces contort. “Please don’t touch me.”

  They didn’t listen.

  “Remove your hands from my person,” she ordered, and a purple flash punctured the air, tossing the guards to the side.

  “Magic is not to be used in Asgard, Lady Hel,” Freyja called out. “I suggest you remember that for next time.”

  The purple magic wafted around Hel, pulsating. It served as her warning, for purple magic was that of Ymir.

  Chapter 17

  Freyja, Asgard

  As was her ritual, Freyja sat in the fields of Folkvang with the bright morning sun warm on her face and paused before beginning the day. To be the Queen of Asgard, one had to do more than just sleep with Odin.

  As she drank from her goblet filled with the water from the prophetic well, her mind drifted to the happenings of Midgard, as it did daily.

  She closed her eyes. Hearing the thudding of her heartbeat and her breath flowing in and out of her body, she emptied her mind, things transformed, and a strangeness akin to the sound of rain caught her attention. She leaned forward and concentrated harder. She heard the scuttling of a swarm of locusts, all covered in tints of purple magic.

  The scene then appeared before her eyes as if she stood there in their midst.

  The sound grew as the wingless creatures moved through over the lush farmland, stopping to devour all of the living plants in their way.

  “Why am I seeing this?” Freyja asked. Guided by the waters, the scene quickly changed, only to be replicated thousands of times—sometimes the insects crawled freshly hatched from the desert floor, and at other times, they flew in swarms, blocking out the sunlight with their numerous wings.

  The arrival of locusts was nothing new. The creatures usually showed up at least once during the season, somewhere in Midgard, but this was different. It was almost as if they’d all received a command to devour everything edible in their paths, from the fields to the farms.

  A plague of locusts pinged off the metal and glass of buildings. A cloud of bugs that resembled a sandstorm covered everything in sight.

  She’d seen what locusts could do and thought back to the invasion of 1874. The harvest had been succulent that year, but after the insects were done, the entire area waited only for starvation.

  Freyja pushed herself from her seated position and hurried back to the throne room, where Odin would be hearing the minor undertakings and complaints of the Asgardians, as any ruler should. Upon entering, she found Njord standing before Odin’s throne.

  “And you encouraged him to find the spark?” Odin was asking.

  Njord nodded his head. “I would have drawn him a map, but that would have been too presumptive since he didn’t know to where he needed to go.”

  “I don’t understand why you all disobey my rulings. This rebellion leads to revolts, which could be the beginning of the end. If we do not work together, then we are all doomed.”

  “But isn’t that the price of all this?” Freyja interjected. “If we do not work together, Midgard is the one that will pay the price. Thor is their guardian and—”

  “What better place for the guardian to be than there?” Odin said.

  “Even now, locusts and their kind swarm and multiply, eating everything. People will perish.”

  “They always do.”

  “Njord, please excuse us,” Freyja said.

  “Yes, daughter,” he said, bowed and walked away.

  “My dear husband, your logic is filled with fallacy and foolishness,” Freyja said and crossed the room to stand directly before him. She leaned over and cupped his whiskered cheek.

  Odin sighed. “You do not see what I do.”

  “Nor do you see what I have s
een. If nothing else, send Thor his hammer. I believe he will need it.”

  “He just wants to smash stuff. It will not change him.”

  “Part of loving our children is to not wish to change them, but to embrace them as they are. He is good and honorable, and we need him. For, my love, Lady Hel has started a plague of deadly consequence.”

  Chapter 18

  Sif

  “What is that sound?” I asked.

  The swarms of locusts rammed into buildings and struck cars and window glass like rain. They scuttled forward.

  From our position, we watched the hotel building opposite teeter and totter under the weight of what must have been more than one million locusts. They munched all the manicured greenery around the hotel then crawled over other buildings, covering every viewable inch.

  After a while, the hotel lost its battle and began to crumble. Large jagged stones crashed down onto the asphalt, while passersby and pedestrians raced to safety. The distress and bewilderment brought on by this extraordinary natural disaster was such that even grown men wailed.

  “We have to save them,” Ola said.

  I agreed. I didn’t know how or even if I could do anything, but standing there and watching the people perish was not what I called a good time. “What can we do?” I asked.

  We all turned and stared at Thor. Maybe he had a plan.

  “Is there some reason, ladies, why you are staring at me?” he asked.

  “Don’t you see what is happening?” Chi said and waved at the window.

  “I don’t have my hammer to save anyone. That is the source of my power.”

  “Surely you have a connection to others who might help, a psychic connection to call home and have rescuers come right away?” Kristen asked. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped the dust from her face.

  “I can feel your pain and anguish, but this is a part of the pruning,” Thor said.